About J. Ramanand

 

100 Word Bio

J. Ramanand is a co-founder at Choose To Thinq, helping leaders build great culture at work and help teams and individuals remain relevant through curiosity and compounding habits. Ramanand has helped companies like VMware, IDeaS - a SAS Company, and Icertis foster a culture of innovation, collaboration, and hybrid work.  An IIT Bombay alumnus, he was earlier an applied researcher in NLP & ML. Ramanand is the youngest winner of the BBC quiz show Mastermind India and has also appeared as an expert on KBC. He has published fiction and non-fiction, and contributed to a book on reflection. 

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Professional Bio

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"The future is already here; it's just not very evenly distributed" - William Gibson

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We live in a digital, distributed, and diverse world underlined by anxiety, irrelevance, and uncertainty. I'm a co-founder at Choose To Thinq, where I help leaders and individuals navigate this world by building great culture at work, practicing curiosity, and learning to stay future relevant. 

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I am a multi-disciplinary thinker, systems designer, and curator who creates programs help teams discover their cultural values and bring them to life through stories, reflection prompts, and other engaging content. I create learning programs around topics like storytelling, persuasion, creative thinking, and innovation. I bring in wide-ranging ideas on team engagement, onboarding & retention, and enabling innovation, and collaboration at work.

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My work has helped organisations like VMware India be named "Best Place to Innovate". I have worked closely with leaders at IDeaS - a SAS Company, InfraCloud, and Reckitt. I've done projects for HBR, Google, Flipkart, Siemens, among others.

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Through CTQ Compounds, I help people build powerful reading and curiosity habits. I have helped 200+ people build a habit of daily reading. I have designed and delivered a course on habit-building for FLAME university.

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In the first half of my career, I was an applied researcher in natural language processing and machine learning, resulting in journal and conference publications on sentiment analysis and knowledge systems. I lead and mentored engineers in two innovation labs. I have built and delivered enterprise software for startups and established companies.

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Academic Bio

I have a Masters degree in IT & CS from IIT Bombay, one of India's best engineering institutions, and an undergraduate degree from COEP, India's third oldest college. I was ranked 5th in the University of Pune in my final year of undergraduate studies. 

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I have added academic credentials through online courses, on topics such as behavioural economics, the human brain, and thinking better. My most recent Coursera specialisation involved a five course series on Futures Thinking.

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I've taught computer science courses at COEP and courses on storytelling & habit building for entrepreneurs at FLAME University.

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Interests

Quizzing

I am the youngest winner of BBC's Mastermind India quiz and have appeared on the TV quiz show KBC as a guest expert. I've conducted 500+ quizzes for India's best known institutions and corporate entities and set over 25,000 quiz questions. I  publish one quiz question a day at Infinite Zounds.

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Writing

I've published fiction in anthologies and contributed non-fiction pieces to Mint and in-flight magazines for Jet Airways. At CTQ, I co-authored a book on reflection called "Pause at Yellow".

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Reading & Curation

I'm an avid reader of books and non-fiction articles. Along with my colleagues, I've read one book summary each day for 4 years and counting. As the lead curator for CTQ Compounds, I've curated over 1000+ exceptional articles on a wide swathe of topics.

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Daily Habits & Routines

I am a habits geek, with a focus on daily routines. I have successfully designed for myself durable habits on reading, language learning, journaling, and exercise. 

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Learning to Learn

I enjoy learning new topics and taking online courses. I have completed courses on behavioural economics, the brain, learning to learn, futures thinking, and carnatic music appreciation. I also study learning systems such as spaced repetition, the memory palace method, and story-based mnemonics.